Product Innovation Dynamics Research Articles

Information Retrieval Technologies and Big Data Analytics to Analyze Product Innovation in the Music Industry

In Cultural and Creative Industries, innovation contributes to generating a competitive advantage thanks to the fundamental role assumed by the human creativity and the quest for novelty. In particular, the music industry stands out as one of the most successful ones, in terms of both revenue and employment. The music industry is also quickly and constantly growing, supported by the new digital technologies and the rise of streaming platforms and digital services, which have increased the availability of continuous, reliable, and timely data. Consequently, this may allow the implementation of novel techniques to study product innovation occurring in the music industry. Nonetheless, quantitative approaches to study innovation in this industry are scant. The present study aims at filling this gap by developing a quantitative approach to analyze product innovation dynamics in the music industry exploiting data collected through Music Information Retrieval technologies. We selected a successful band as a case study and analyzed each song released from 1984 to 2016 to obtain a quantitative representation of their musical production. We then developed and applied quantitative similarity metrics to see how each album was similar or different from the previous ones and from the most relevant music genres, to better understand innovation dynamics in music production.

Model for identifying firm’s product innovation dynamics: applied to the case of the Korean mobile phone industry

ABSTRACT Existing studies on product innovation dynamics depend on patent analysis and only focus on the analysis of technological evolution. This study proposes a new model that can analyze complex products with many technological features and that are continuously improved. The suggested model considers the relationship between product models through a similarity measure and social network measures. An empirical analysis has been conducted on data about smartphones that had been sold in the Korean market from 2010 to 2015. The results show the inter-firm and intra-firm evolutionary patterns and identify innovation strategies (i.e. imitation or innovation) of each smartphone manufacturer. Our research contributes to existing research on product evolution by conducting analyses at product-level instead of firm-level and by considering the features of products. From a managerial perspective, our new model helps decision-makers monitoring new product developments in the industry and establishing strategies for their next product models.

European Innovation Dynamics and Us Economic Impact: Theory and Empirical Analysis

The role of product innovations is growing in the world economy, and the EU and the US are key players here. The analysis presented herein explains product innovations in the EU25 for the period 2006-2012, namely through lagged R&D (relative to GDP), cumulated FDI inflows (relative to the host country capital stock) and cumulated FDI inflows (relative to the host country capital stock), joint internet intensity, broadband intensity and potential competition. For the first time we can offer a broad analysis of product innovation dynamics in Europe which should be the basis for not only better supply-side policy in EU countries and growth policy, respectively, but it also suggests a strong role for international digital communication in relation to product innovation dynamics. Moreover, the approach provides new important arguments in favor of the TTIP negotiations between the US and the EU and it suggests a broader analytical link between trade, FDI, innovation, employment and output growth.

The Interplay of Customer and Product Innovation Dynamics: An Exploratory Study

The challenges of successfully developing radical or really new products have received considerable attention from a variety of marketing, strategic, and organizational perspectives. Previous research has stressed the importance of a market‐driven customer orientation, the resolution of market and technological uncertainty, and organizational processes such as cross‐functional teams and organizational learning. However, several fundamental issues have not been addressed. From a customer's perspective, a more innovative product tends to have uncertain benefits and requires customers to learn new behaviors. Customer preferences can, therefore, change as product experience and learning increase. From a firm's perspective, it is unclear how to be customer‐oriented under such dynamic preferences, and product strategies using evolving technologies will tend to interact with how customers learn about an innovation. This research focuses on identifying unresolved issues about these customer and product innovation dynamics. A conceptual framework and series of propositions are presented that relate both changing technology and customer learning to a firm's strategic decisions in developing and launching really new products. The framework is based on in‐depth interviews with high‐tech product managers across several sectors, focusing on the business‐to‐business context. The propositions resulting from the framework highlight the need to consider relevant customer dynamics as integral to a firm's product innovation process. Successful innovation strategies and future research challenges are discussed, and applications to better understanding customer needs and theories of disruptive innovation are examined. Several key insights for innovation success hinge on a broad, downstream orientation to customer needs and product innovation dynamics. To be effective innovators, firms must know their customers' customers and competitors as well as or better than their immediate customers do. Market research must extend downstream for a comprehensive understanding of customer needs dynamics. In the context of disruptive innovation, new dimensions of customer needs may become more valuable based on perceived downstream customer trends. Firms may also innovate on secondary needs because mainstream customers do not always give firms the design freedom to radically innovate on primary features. Understanding customer commitments and how they develop under evolving needs can help firms focus resources on innovative efforts more likely to be accepted by customers.

The dynamics of product innovation and firm competences

AbstractThis study examines how product innovation contributes to the renewal of the firm through its dynamic and reciprocal relation with the firm's competences. Field research in five high‐tech firms of varying age, size, and level of diversification is combined with analysis of existing theory to develop the findings of the study. Based on the notion that new products are created by linking competences relating to technologies and customers, a typology is derived that classifies new product projects based on whether a new product can draw on existing competences, or whether it requires competences the firm does not yet have. Following organizational learning theory, these options are conceptualized as exploitation and exploration. These organizational learning concepts are used to gain a dynamic and path‐dependent view of product innovation and firm development, and to reveal the unique nature and challenges of different types of product innovation. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Evolutional dynamics of product innovation: the case of consumer electronics

This report addresses the question of how product innovation occurs. In other words, where does it originate and what induces it? The aim of the authors has been to expand upon and systematize the research presented in our previous study (Orihata, M., Watanabe, C., Technovation, in press) through the application of a new, evolutionary approach. We have chosen to focus on the consumer electronics industry, taking as our case studies three producers of revolutionary products such as Sony's video camera, Sharp's PDA (Personal Digital Assistance) and Toshiba's notebook personal computer. These examples have the virtue of encompassing both visual and text-based data transmission devices, as well as hand-script input and keyboard input methods. The main point we shall consider here is the stage that takes place before product innovation occurs, the process that we have termed “institutional inducement”, which forms part of the feedback loop between the market, or environment, and the producer. Because this process is “a flow of information and knowledge” we have structured it using a semiotic methodology, which has led us to conclude that product innovation is induced by the creation of new product concepts. In accordance with this, we propose that the evolutionary, dynamic pattern of product innovation is linked to the institutional trajectory.

A Comparative Review of "The Knowledge Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation,", "Mastering the Dynamics of Product Innovation: How Companies Can Seize Opportunities in the Face of Technological Change,", and "Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation," [Book Reviews

A Comparative Review of "The Knowledge Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation,", "Mastering the Dynamics of Product Innovation: How Companies Can Seize Opportunities in the Face of Technological Change,", and "Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation," [Book Reviews

The innovation of agrochemicals: regulation and patent protection

The focus of this paper is the dynamics of product innovation in the agrochemicals industry. Innovative activity is influenced by the interaction of three main factors - the regulatory hurdles associated with registering new products; the patenting system which defines a period of exclusivity during which an innovating company can appropriate the benefits of its new product; and the competitive structure of the agrochemicals market. The possibility of generic competition — production of off-patent active ingredients (AIs) by companies without a strong research base - is a key issue. It is in the interest of research-based companies to raise their profitability by fighting generic competition through patenting strategy (including pressing for extended patent term), regulatory strategy and marketing strategy (product differentiation). However, these strategies also have profound implications for the magnitude and orientation of innovative activity. This paper describes the results of a research project which involved a series of interviews which included R&D managers, regulatory affairs managers and intellectual property managers of research based agrochemicals companies as well as generic manufacturers, formulators, trades associations and regulators. The paper assesses the problem of maintaining the innovation of safer and environmentally superior agrochemicals against a background of generic competition and the possibility of a longer-term shift to a biotechnology paradigm.

Market Structure, Learning and Product Innovation: Evidence for the EPROM Market

The study analyses the market for semiconductor memory chips, in particular EPROMs. Semiconductors are very interesting industry for studying empirically the dynamics of innovation. Given the short product life cycles of generations of chips, the market dynamics unfold much more rapidly than in other industries and are therefore better amenable to empirical observation. One of the aims is to shed more light on the link between learning and the dynamics of product innovation, as well as their influence on market structure. Learning with an old generation turns out to be an important determinant for product innovation. The further down the firm has moved on the learning curve, the higher its market share, and the larger becomes the probability that the firm is an early innovator. The results are consistent with the persistence of leadership hypothesis.